Apple on Friday began redecorating San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts with a massive, colorful banner featuring the company's logo ahead of next week's media event.

Workers began covering the glass windows on the center Friday morning in California. Apple typically hypes its product unveilings with decorations throughout the center.

As of Friday afternoon, workers were about halfway done with sticking the design to the center's windows. This year's graphic is a mix of vivid colors in the background, with a giant white Apple logo up front.

The bright colors and what appear to be paint splatters in the design are somewhat reminiscent of the theme for the media event Apple held in early 2010 to introduce the first iPad. As rumors of an Apple tablet were swirling, Apple invited members of the media to "come see our latest creation."

This year's invitation features a picture of an iPad with a fingertip touching the iOS Calendar application icon. The date on the calendar is Wednesday, March 7, which is when the media event will be held.

Apple has unveiled its previous two iPad models in events at the Yerba Buena Center. Last year's decoration was a black Apple logo on a white background, surrounded by colorful dots.

Invitations to last year's event featured the iOS calendar icon peeling back to reveal an iPad. It invited members of the press to "come see what 2011 will be the year of," and at the event Apple declared it the "Year of iPad 2."

The fact that the 2012 invitation says that attendees need to "see" this year's update has been viewed by many as a reference to the high-resolution Retina Display that is expected to be one of the defining features of the next iPad. There has been mounting evidence leading up to this year's event that the so-called "iPad 3" will feature a 2,048-by-1,536-pixel display, doubling the resolution and quadrupling the number of pixels of previous iPad screens.

Right, because Apple NEVER slightly modifies icons especially along with a new announcement

But his point was that it's not the same icon. In fact you can see at the bottom right that it's clearly meant to represent some dripping paint.

Bottom line is that this huge image 6 days before the event isn't going to offer us any in-depth clues that we don't already know. Any relevant banners will be inside and covered up until the end of the event.

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I wonder if there will be anything maps related announced at the event seen as though the maps app icon is visible sitting on the dock on the invite.

If the retina/high res display is on the iPad3, I wonder how long it takes for Samsung and Motorola to come out with a similar spec device. Definitely another year of the iPad and not the copycats.

Holy crap! I can't believe I haven't seen this discussed before. It's Maps, Calendar and Keynote in the dock. None of which are found there natively.

The Calendar app seems obvious because it shows the day of the event. Keynote can surely refer to the event itself but it could also mean that iWork will be updated. But Maps is the unique one here.

Around 6 months ago I started suggesting that all of Apple's map-based acquisitions could be coming to a head in 2012 if we look at their other app-based cycles. I also stated that the iPad would be the best place to showcase a new Maps app even though iPhone users would use it more. My reason was obviously due to the 10" display. Combine that with 265 PPI and you have a very impressive demo of the future of mapping.

PS: Today I read that Foursquare has dropped Google Maps. i wonder if we'll see a trend.

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To me the most impressive thing will be if they can get 10 or more hours of use on the iPad. It's possible that display unit doesn't need the dual-baclight system (perhaps because it's using AH-IPS) and could even be thinner if they were able to secure Gorilla Glass 2. That extra 0.81mm could be for the needed battery.

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Holy crap! I can't believe I haven't seen this discussed before. It's Maps, Calendar and Keynote in the dock. None of which are found there natively.

The Calendar app seems obvious because it shows the day of the event. Keynote can surely refer to the event itself but it could also mean that iWork will be updated. But Maps is the unique one here.

Around 6 months ago I started suggesting that all of Apple's map-based acquisitions could be coming to a head in 2012 if we look at their other app-based cycles. I also stated that the iPad would be the best place to showcase a new Maps app even though iPhone users would use it more. My reason was obviously due to the 10" display. Combine that with 265 PPI and you have a very impressive demo of the future of mapping.

PS: Today I read that Foursquare has dropped Google Maps. i wonder if we'll see a trend.

The Map icon is probably just to signify that the location of the event. Nothing to over think.

Apart from a better display, what else is the iPad3 expected to have? Better processor and more memory/storage is a given. Some say LTE, but I've not heard about anything else. I'm guessing perhaps a Thunderbolt port, but I'm not sure about that.

But his point was that it's not the same icon. In fact you can see at the bottom right that it's clearly meant to represent some dripping paint.

Bottom line is that this huge image 6 days before the event isn't going to offer us any in-depth clues that we don't already know. Any relevant banners will be inside and covered up until the end of the event.

True, I get his point that it's not the exact icon as it is today. But my original point was that it's weird that neither AI nor MacNN even made mention of the graphic mimicking the Retina Display icon. But perhaps their reason is based on what you say it's such old news that Retina Display is part of the announcement, and the reveal of the signage is only important to them to the extent of symbolism that isn't already obvious.

Use Imgur. Probably the single best image site out there. I host all of my Apple Executive image macros there.

[IMG...]

This is the icon I use as a FaceTime replacement. The image here is a PNG (since I can't upload the ICNS), but you can use Img2Icns to convert it in seconds.

I like it because it's evocative of the Aperture icon while remaining true to the color scheme of the real FaceTime icon. And ANYTHING is better than the trash that it is now.

The day they finally fold it into Messages will be a good day.

Thanks I'll try to take your suggestions. I like that icon you use too. Is there a place to get the icn? I don't have Img2Icn. I should use Imgur but I've always been paranoid with image sites. I guess I should up my meds!

This is the icon I use as a FaceTime replacement. The image here is a PNG (since I can't upload the ICNS), but you can use Img2Icns to convert it in seconds.

I like it because it's evocative of the Aperture icon while remaining true to the color scheme of the real FaceTime icon. And ANYTHING is better than the trash that it is now.

The day they finally fold it into Messages will be a good day.

I've never had a problem with the icons. I experimented — one time, in college — with different icons but overall I just don't care or notice.

If I had to pick some I think are bad I'd pick VLC and Music on iOS... but maybe I just don't like orange. I certainly do prefer blue, I can say that least.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljocampo

It's not likely that Apple will show their hand on Maps to Google until they have it ready. That would give the copycat too much time to copy it.

I didn't mean to imply demoing it without releasing it within the standard time frame for iOS.

In fact, I can see Maps on the iPad being an impressive demo that Apple might release it on the iPad with whatever version of iOS it comes with and then later for the iPhone/Touch. I do realized that would be atypical but if they offer Siri built-in and voice navigation this might need a small open test forum before going live on their flagship. Still, I give this hypothesis less than a 5% chance.

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